Moments of Respite: The Glass Sculpture of Janusz Walentynowicz
By curator Nannette V. Maciejunes for the Polish Museum of Art, May 17, 1996
The medium of glass and the way Walentynowicz handles it is integral to his expressive intention. He shares with other artists who work in glass the defining experience -- and challenge -- of actually creating the material with which he is working. It is significant, therefore, that he has chosen to eschew the traditional seductive qualities of glass in favor of textured, semi-opaque glass that is often flawed, cracked, and pitted. The specific character of the glass he creates is inseparable from his meaning:
“Glass insists that we look into it, that we not stop at the surface of what is shown. The emotional states depicted here are points of easily disturbed equilibrium's between inner and outer states. The traces of surface, color and texture both hold back and reveal clues. You can look past these external details of identity right into the scars and stress of experience which are still evident and threatening internally though healed on the surface.”
The physical character of the glass itself, therefore, literally becomes a metaphor for the inner emotional character of his figures - a metaphor for the human experience. Walentynowicz is one of the most important figurative artists working in glass today. His work is in museum collections around the world and will be seen this fall at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Janusz Walentynowicz belongs to the first generation of glass artists determined to move beyond the sheer thrill of technical innovation that dominated the first two decades of the contemporary Istudio glass movement. Coming of age as artists in the 1980s, some twenty years after the movement's birth, the new generation has sought to use the extensive range of technical knowledge bequeathed to them by their elders to explore ideas and expressive possibilities well beyond the confines of their material's natural beauty. Some have even chosen in their work to deliberately deny glass's traditionally prized qualities of brilliance, clarity, and translucence.
Concern over whether contemporary glass should be defined as a craft or as fine art continues to plague this current generation, with some confidently asserting that "glass is on the verge of transcending Its historic connotation as a craft material, while others already committed to glass as fine art bemoan the dismissal of the medium as "the pretty girl of the art world" who "has to try harder to prove [herself] serious." Regardless of formal definitions, in the last decade glass has formed strong links to mainstream sculpture. Many younger artists trained in glass have embraced the use of mixed media, combining glass with materials such as paint, wood, marble and bronze. In turn, glass has increasingly attracted mainstream sculptors as a legitimate medium to use in their own work. The blurring of distinctions among media is becoming more common, and the question of craft or fine art may someday simply become irrelevant as Studio glass becomes fully integrated with other media. What is certain today is that many artists are increasingly asking what they can say in glass rather than what they can do with glass.
Janusz Walentynowicz is certainly one of these artists. His primary concern has always been to find a way to express in artistic form his interest in what he calls "the intimate levels of human relations." The medium he has chosen to use and the form his work has taken are direct results of his search to express this purpose. Like many glass artists, Walentynowicz came to glass through ceramics which he studied throughout his formative education. In fact, he worked independently as a ceramist in Tollose, Denmark for two years before continuing his studies in ceramics in 1978 at the Skolen for Brugskunst (School for Applied Arts) in Copenhagen. There he discovered the medium of glass and abandoned ceramics to study with Finn Lynggaard, for whom he would later work as an assistant in Lynggaard's private studio in Elbeltoft. In 1982 Lynggaard introduced the aspiring young artist to Joel Philip Myers, head of the glass program at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. Walentynowicz entered the Master of Fine Arts program in glass at Illinois State that same year. He remained at the university working closely with Myers until 1991 when he deliberately chose not to complete the requirements for his academic degree so that he would not be tempted to fall back on a teaching career. Since then he has worked as an independent artist, living in Bloomington, Illinois.
(Excerpt only, for complete article please contact gallery)
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